Baidu Inc. is preparing to turn the competition over artificial intelligence talent in Silicon Valley up another notch, despite the recent loss of its chief scientist and machine learning guru Andrew Ng.

The Chinese search giant on Friday announced plans to open a research facility in Sunnyvale that will be tasked with the dual mission of finding new ways to harness neural networks and developing software for autonomous vehicles. Bloomberg reports that the site designated for the campus is only a mile away from Baidu’s existing Silicon Valley AI center, which launched in 2013 and expanded with the arrival of Ng a year later. It currently employs about 200 engineers and likewise counts self-driving cars as a key focus area.

As part of the expansion, the two facilities are set to move under the leadership of Ya-qin Zhang, a former head of Microsoft Corp.’s research operations in Asia. One of his biggest challenges in the new role will be recruiting the roughly 150 AI experts whom Baidu plans to employ at the second center, talent that won’t be easy to come by given the strong demand from other tech giants. The competition is so fierce that the search giant is even struggling to hold onto its existing employees.

Last week, Chinese web giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. revealed it poached the head of Baidu’s Big Data Lab, machine learning expert Zhang Tong, to lead its AI group. His departure comes only a week after the search giant lost another prominent member of the team: Andrew Ng, a pioneer in the field of automated speech and image recognition at Stanford University and Google Inc. before he joined Baidu.

The search giant is far from the only player experiencing the shortage of AI experts. Facebook Inc., which has been aggressively poaching researchers from competitors, is teaching existing staff about the technology to fill the gaps in its recruiting. Baidu stepped up its own talent acquisition efforts recently by reportedly offering an up to 15 percent salary increase to scientists who are willing to relocate to China, where the AI skills shortage is even more pronounced than in the U.S.

Other tech giants are also starting to move beyond Silicon Valley in pursuit of talent. Microsoft Corp., for instance, recently announced plans to establish a research center in Montreal, which boasts a higher concentration of deep learning researchers than any other city.

Image: Baidu